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Ambassador Soup
A pint and a half of either fresh peas, or of dried peas that have been soaked for six hours in cold water; a leek, and three onions chopped finely. Simmer till the peas are tender, then pass all through the sieve. Well wash some sorrel and chop it, and add as much as will be to your taste. In another pan cook five tablespoonfuls of rice, and add that to your soup. Simmer up again, stirring it all very well. This soup should be of a green color. Crecy Soup (Belgian recipe) Take ten carrots, two onions, one leek, five potatoes, and cook all gently in water, with salt and pepper; when they are tender, rub them through the sieve and serve it very hot.
Two purée soups printed together, both written in the shorthand of a cook who already knows what a stockpot looks like. Neither states a quantity of liquid, which is the main thing you have to supply.
- The missing liquidNo water or stock quantity is given for either soup. For the pea soup, start with about 2 quarts of water or light stock to a pint and a half of peas and adjust after sieving; the Crécy wants just enough to cover the vegetables, roughly 6 cups, since the purée is the whole dish.
- Fresh or dried, not interchangeableFresh peas will be tender in 10-15 minutes. Soaked dried peas need 45 minutes to an hour and will drink far more liquid. Dried peas will also give a duller, greyer soup rather than the clear green the recipe asks for, so use fresh or frozen if the colour matters.
- Sorrel is the pointThe acidity of sorrel is what makes this soup taste of something other than peas. Add it at the very end and cook it only a minute or two; longer and it collapses to an olive-brown sludge and takes the green with it. Start with a large handful, taste, and add more.
- Passing through the sieveA blender or food processor does in thirty seconds what a drum sieve and wooden pestle did in ten minutes. For pea soup, pass the blended purée through a mesh strainer afterwards to catch the skins.
- The riceFive tablespoons of raw rice cooked separately, then stirred in, thickens the soup and gives it body without flour. Cook it fully in salted water, drain, and add it after the purée is smooth so the grains stay whole.
- Crécy means carrotsTen carrots is roughly 1½ lb. The five potatoes appear to be there as thickener; a floury variety such as russet or Maris Piper will break down more readily under the sieve than a waxy one.
- Seasoning and finishBoth soups are seasoned only with salt and pepper as written. A knob of butter or a spoonful of cream stirred in off the heat is a common enrichment for a sieved soup, though the recipe does not call for it.
- YieldEach recipe makes roughly 8 cups, serving four to six as a first course.
The Belgian Cook Book was assembled by Mrs. Brian Luck in 1915 from recipes contributed by Belgian refugees who had fled to Britain after the German invasion, in aid of relief work; the terseness of many entries may reflect recipes given from memory rather than copied from a book. "Crécy" is the standard French culinary term for a carrot soup or garnish, usually traced to the carrot-growing district around Crécy in the Brie, though a derivation from the battlefield of Crécy is also repeated and the point is not settled. "Ambassador" belongs to the French habit of naming purées after dignitaries and offices. Sorrel was a common kitchen-garden green across northern Europe and provided the acid note that lemon would supply today.